


If today we'll drown

by SamValentine



Category: Who Was That Lady? (1960)
Genre: 1960s, ? - Freeform, Empire State Building - Freeform, F/M, M/M, New York, New York City, dare i tag with, dean martin - Freeform, janet leigh, tony curtis - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 09:36:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19170598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamValentine/pseuds/SamValentine
Summary: “If we’re going to drown—” Michael said, and saw David swallow “—I didn’t want it to be without doing that.”Or: What Really (Should Have) Happened in the basement of the Empire State Building.





	If today we'll drown

They were both drenched head to toe, the water lapping around their waists, and rising steadily.

David threw another switch and a giant pipe burst – and as the wall of water crashed down, Mike pressed David between himself and the railings and held on tight until the torrent had slowed.

He leant back, but didn’t let go of the railings.

David turned around to face him, and they stood tight, chest to chest. “Mike,” he started, but he didn’t finish whatever he was about to say. He looked at Michael, long lashes sticking together wetly, eyes bright.

Michael hardly knew what he was doing when he leant forward and pressed his lips to David’s. He didn’t surprise himself – but David did, as one of his hands flew up and came to rest in his neck, uncertain for a moment, but then pulled him closer rather than pushed him away.

With a hitch in his breath, Michael turned his head, briefly brushing his lips against David’s chin. He couldn’t turn away further: David had his other hand knotted into his sodden shirt-front.

It took Mike a moment or two before he dared make eye contact. He was relieved not to find panic in David’s expression, but there was an unspoken question in his open gaze.

“If we’re going to drown—” he said, and saw David swallow “—I didn’t want it to be without doing that.”

“For how long... since when...” David faltered. His fingers loosened slightly against Michael’s chest, then his fist tightened again.

Michael couldn’t fully suppress a laugh that came out sounding more bitter than he wanted. He couldn’t answer, not when his chest was so tight and David pressed so close against him and looking so forlorn. He cocked his head slightly and saw David’s eyes flick to his lips, and God help him if it wasn’t true that David also leant in when Mike kissed him again.

He startled away when he heard a loud bang. Behind David, one of the heavy watertight doors had slammed against the wall. In the door opening, incomprehensibly, stood the FBI man Powell.

As all the thoughts tumbled through his head – not a submarine; caught kissing with David; _not a submarine_ ; Powell? – he finally realised he ought to step away from David, and he splashed aside as the final realisation hit him: they weren’t going to die and he had kissed David.

Michael cast a wide-eyed glance over his shoulder at David, who was staring open-mouthed at Powell. Looking back, Mike saw Powell try and bar someone from entering what Mike by now assumed was a basement, but after a few seconds of struggling with his wounded arm Powell couldn’t stop Ann from bursting through the door opening and she plunged down the stairs, heading straight for David.

She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

Michael tore his gaze away and walked up the stairs. He had to get past Powell, out of the Empire State, and into a place where they served alcohol.

Powell stopped him on his way up. His hand was like a wrench around Michael’s elbow. “She went hysterical when she heard you boys had been locked up down here with the place threatening to flood,” he said quietly, almost inaudibly over the hiss of steam and water. His grip relaxed slightly. “I’m sorry, kid,” he added. His frown looked genuine, and Mike almost wanted to kiss him – someone, anyone, who understood what he was feeling.

Instead, he jerked his arm away as if he’d been burned and stomped past Powell, turning a corner and climbing up more stairs. He climbed three flights, passed some firefighters on their way down, and he made it halfway between the second and first basement, before he sank down on one of the steps, closing his eyes and resting his head against the handrail.

 

Powell looked at the kids kissing at the foot of the stairs. The water was now around Wilson’s chest, and they seemed so involved in making up they might actually drown – and he didn’t suffer through all of this to let that happen.

He scraped his throat loudly, and the Wilsons looked up at him. He jerked his head towards the door, and they came up the stairs, gasping as the cold air hit them when the exited the water.

Technicians filed through the door and stoically waded in, inspecting pipes and valves. Powell let them be – he wouldn’t be of help to them, and he could still hardly move his right arm, numbed by the bullet – and turned his attention back to the Wilsons, now standing next to him by the door. Not that they were paying _him_ any attention.

“Are you still mad at me?” Wilson asked his wife. His hands were around her waist.

“Yes,” Ann said, frowning.

“Do you forgive me?”

“That too,” Ann said eventually. Then she smiled.

“I couldn’t love any—any other girl,” Wilson said, swallowed, and let his wife kiss him again.

Powell didn’t miss the emphasis on the last word. How could he, after what he had seen? He opened his mouth, clenched his teeth. He shouldn’t get mixed up into these people’s affairs again. He half turned away, then he remembered the way Haney had looked as he came up the stairs – the way he had seen Haney and Wilson standing entangled when he pushed open the watertight door.

With half an eye-roll he turned back. “Wilson,” he said, with a jerk of the head. He led him a few paces away from his wife and said into his ear, “you might want to check up on your buddy.” He glanced towards the stairs behind Wilson, just visible around the corner.

“Right,” Wilson said. “Ann—?”

“I’ll take care of her,” Powell said, with a somewhat stiff lopsided smile.

“OK,” Wilson said, looked at his wife for a moment, then back to Powell, then turned and sprinted up the stairs.

“Where’s he going?” Ann asked.

“Just clearing up some things with the Bureau concerning this Belka fellow,” Powell lied effortlessly. “Mrs Wilson,” he gestured for her to join him, and she took his left arm as they ambled towards the elevator. It had been cleared for use again, and they stepped out into a nearly empty lobby, where he left her in a queue of people lining up to get something warm to drink.

“Harry,” a familiar voice said.

“Bob,” he nodded to Doyle who approached him through the lobby.

“We got Belka and his friends,” Doyle said. “How did our two adventurers fare?”

“They’re... alive,” Powell said eventually.

Doyle raised an eyebrow.

“Look, Bob,” Powell said, even though he knew he shouldn’t: “do you see any way we could let them sweat a little but then let them off the hook? I think we can consider them ‘warned,’ by now.”

“Well,” Doyle said, looking perplexed for maybe a second before his usual frown returned. “You really have a soft spot for these kids, don’t you?”

“Put it down to a temporary loss of reason,” Powell muttered. He rubbed his forehead with the palm of his left hand, then looked at Bob again.

“Well, our three musketeers did help us round up Belka and company,” Doyle said eventually. “I think they’ve done—how did they put it?—more than their duty to the citizen.” He paused, looked at Powell’s arm in a sling, and his gaze softened. “And you too. Come on.” He put an arm around Powell’s shoulders, and together they exited the lobby.

 

All he could hear was the hum and thrum of the machinery deep in the belly of the Empire State Building, probably pumping away the water that he and David had flooded the lowest basement with. He groaned, and pressed his temple against the cold metal of the handrail harder. The metal seemed to vibrate with the noise, and it jarred the headache that had been pressing behind his eyes all day into awaking, but everything was preferable to thinking.

There was a rhythmic metal clanging, and Michael screwed his eyes shut tighter.

The noise got louder, paused. Louder, paused. Louder, louder, then stopped.

He looked.

David stood two steps below him.

“Ah David, look,” Michael started, startled, making the decision in a split second: _salvage the friendship_. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me down there, probably the adrenaline, I—”

“Shut up,” David said, as he took Mike’s right hand in his left, and squeezed it.

Michael was stunned into silence.

Then David let go of his hand, only to rest his palms on Michael’s thighs as he sank down onto his knees on the step just below the one on which Mike was sitting. “You’re a great storyteller, and a great liar,” David said.

Mike could only stare, probably stupid-looking, he thought, as David placed a trembling hand against his cheek, and then ran his fingers down his throat, to curl his fingers around his wet tie and pull him slightly down.

“You dumb moron,” David murmured, sighed, and kissed Mike as he let his eyes flutter shut.

After a few seconds, the panic hit like a bomb, and he pulled back as if he had been stung. “You’re the moron!” Michael said. “What about Ann? Wasn’t it you who said she’s insanely jealous?”

Michael immediately wished he hadn’t pulled open his big mouth. David’s shoulders were starting to hunch, his eyebrows were raised and scrunched together, and his eyes radiated distress. “I know,” David said, voice on the edge of broken. “We could make it work, though, Mike.”

“We could make _what_ work?” Michael barked. “And do you really think almost dying would make this much of a difference for her?”

David was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, Mike almost couldn’t hear what he said over the still-thrumming machinery: “It did for you, didn’t it?”

Michael’s jaw went slack and his gaze fell. He had no words to repartee – none at all, and that made him feel achingly vulnerable. No defenses left – so when David leant up to kiss him he let it happen, and allowed himself to be lost in the sensation of David’s lips moving against his.

He became aware of the rhythmic clanging only when it was loud above their heads. Heels on the metal steps – and he opened his eyes and twisted his neck to find Ann standing on the landing above them, knuckles white around the handrail. He scrambled up and turned around to face her. He heard David get up and join him on the step he stood on, and he felt how David pressed his shoulder against his.

Her eyes were wide below raised eyebrows, nostrils slightly flared, but her voice was low and steady as she spoke, before either of them could say anything. “I was thinking you could have him on Wednesday evenings, and on weekends twice a month.”

There was a shocked silence for four, five seconds. Then Michael gathered himself, squared his shoulders. “You drive a hard bargain, Annie, but I’ll accept.” He extended a hand, and she descended the steps to shake it, firmly – and from the look in her eyes he could see that she was only half in jest.

He grimaced at the flippant tone had just struck, but Ann was already gesturing for them to follow her upstairs. “Let’s get out of here.”

Upstairs, Ann extended both of her hands. Michael shot a glance at David, and accepted her right, while David took her left. Hand-in-hand, the three of them ran out of the lobby, onto the street where more fire trucks and police cars were howling down towards the Empire State Building.

They piled into the first cab they could find, with David sitting in the middle. Michael made eye contact with Ann as they sat down, and, yes: this was far from over, but perhaps they could make this work – whatever ‘this’ turned out to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for taking the time to read! Comments, crit? Would massively appreciate a note below.


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